The leader of the Belarusian Social Democrats, political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich is transferred to serve the sentence to Pukhavichy district, Minsk region. The politician has already spent more than a year at the labor Facility in Baranavichy (Brest region), because his elderly father who needs help lives there. The official reason for transferring Mr Stakevich is that he is registered in Minsk and therefore is to serve the sentence in Minsk region. The political prisoner believes that in reality the authorities are transferring him to Baranavichy to continue provocations against him and send him to prison. The real reason for transferring me is that the KGB head for Minsk and Minsk region, Major general Kuzniatsou visited Baranavichy recently. He ordered the local agencies to make provocations against me to charge me with some criminal act and send me to prison. Drugs were planted to me, they tried to provoke a fight with me, but they failed. In Pukhavichy district I will be more isolated and dependent on that general. However, I can be charged with some violation of the law. I think that my early release hasn’t been discussed at all,’ told Mikola Statkevich to the Charter’97 press center.

The most unpleasant thing is that my father stays in Baranavichy. And he hasn’t become younger or healthier. He is seriously ill and needs care,’ Statkevich said.

Mikalai Statkevich had been sentenced to two years of restriction of freedom, or so-called corrective labor, for organizing protest rallies in Minsk in autumn 2004 against the rigged results of parliamentary elections and referendum on prolongation of Lukashenka’s term in office.